FRIEND'S DEATH LIFE'S TURNING POINT

Stefanie Cascio. Special to the TribuneCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Lt. Jack Nagle never intended to be a firefighter/paramedic. In fact, the 34-year-old Palos Heights resident might have gone off to college and majored in environmental science had it not been for an accident that killed a close friend.

After graduating from Brother Rice High School in Chicago in 1980, Nagle had planned on a fun summer with some of his friends, working at a camp in Canada.

He ended up learning quickly that life is precious and teenagers are not invincible, Nagle says.

"I had a summer job as a canoe guide," he says. "I was just out of high school, and a friend in the group ended up drowning. That was a big turning point for me, and at that point, I wanted to become a paramedic."

The Palos Heights Fire Protection District was a volunteer service, he recalls. (It went professional in 1985.)

"I originally went into the chief's office and said I wanted to be a paramedic, but he told me I had to be cross-trained. Being a firefighter didn't interest me, but when I started taking the classes, it was really quite fascinating."

Nagle was particularly interested in learning about fire behavior.

"It was interesting to me that somebody actually studied fire, to know that there is a scientific approach to looking at it," he says.

He was trained at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and also attended local classes. He took a state-certification test that enabled him to join the district; he began work in May 1982.

Nagle has a variety of duties. In addition to being on call, they include drills, routine cleaning and inspection of the ambulances and fire engines, regular inspections of businesses and public buildings, and investigating fires to find out their causes and origins.

He also takes turns with other firefighters teaching a cardiopulmonary resuscitation class for the public, schedules physicals for the district's full-time employees and investigates any work-related injuries to full-time district employees.

"I started the cause-and-origin team," he says. "We offer services to assist in the investigation of the fire. We take photos and write reports."

The team of 25 members consists mainly of state-certified fire and arson investigators, police officers and firefighters. It serves 16 southwest suburbs.

He plans to take a six-week course at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to become a certified arson investigator. He should complete his course work in January.

Nagle works a standard 24-hours-on, 48-hours-off shift with a crew of seven, including a shift supervisor. The crew responds to an average of five calls a day.

The district, at 12300 S. Harlem Ave., is responsible for protecting Palos Heights and nearby unincorporated areas. It has a total of 34 staff members comprising a board of trustees, a chief, an attorney, a secretary, and full-time and part-time firefighter/paramedics.

As fire inspector, Nagle spends part of each shift visiting buildings to perform safety checks.

"We're looking at emergency lighting, exit lights and fire extinguishers and we open furnace rooms to make sure there is no storage near them," he says. "We also make sure exit doors are not blocked."

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, he visited the Palos Heights Recreation Department. He had checked the building the week before and noted several violations. This repeat visit was to check that the problems had been corrected.

He invited Mark Purcell, director of parks and recreation, to accompany him during the second tour.

With a clipboard in hand, Nagle checked all the violations: a burned-out exit light, a missing bulb from an emergency light, a furnace grill that had fallen off and exposed wires on a fuse box.

All the violations had been corrected.

The building visits are definitely a less stressful part of the job, Nagle says. Battling fires and dealing with life-threatening situations are much more difficult, but they're rewarding, he says.

He recalls last summer when he and his crew were able to revive a 70-year-old man who had suffered cardiac arrest.

"To actually save somebody is very rare, as hard as we try," he says.

"To actually bring somebody back from cardiac arrest is very gratifying."

One of the biggest fires Nagle has fought happened two years ago at the Mobil chemical plant in Frankfort. The Palos Heights district and about 10 others assisted.

"It was a storage warehouse filled with Styrofoam," he recalls. "It was real thick, black smoke. That was the biggest one. We were there for probably four or five hours."

No one was injured.

More than 10 years ago, he and his crew assisted on another large fire. That time, the flames were caused by lightning that ignited oil storage tanks in Alsip.

"It was quite scary," he says. "You're dealing with 3 million gallons of oil, and I was just thinking about (what would happen) if it blew up right where I was standing. But that just comes with the job."

Nagle says his faith often plays a strong role in his job, particularly in emergency situations.

"I pray for my abilities, that God gives me the strength to do what I've gone to school to do in those moments," he says.

Nagle was born on Chicago's South Side; he and his family lived there until he was 3, when they moved to an unincorporated area near Palos Heights.

After graduating from high school, he worked odd jobs before joining the district. From 1984 to 1989, he worked a second job as a nursing assistant in the emergency room at Palos Community Hospital in Palos Heights.

He met his future wife, Martha, at a volleyball game. They later discovered that they worked at the same hospital but never met because they worked different shifts. She was a nurse.

They married in 1986. They live in Palos Heights with their four children.

On his days off, he spends time with his children and acts and sings in musicals at Moraine Valley Community Church, Palos Hills. He also sings in the choir, plays guitar and enjoys martial arts.

Nagle's shift supervisor, Rich Czajkowski, worked with him at the hospital. He has worked with Nagle for 14 years in the department.

"Jack is a real mild-mannered guy," Czajkowski says, "and he has a good head on his shoulders--common sense is the one thing you really have to have because you're faced with so many different situations."